jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you
might find here;
graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets,
proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching,
valuable information on living off the land...
if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try
slashdot instead.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments,
reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post.
If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me,
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This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever.

The two days at Bodega were good for this gearhead, I got a chance to look
at friends' iPads and Samsung SCH-1800s with SealLine waterproof cases, and
a lifeproof iPhone cover. Also saw a Wheeleez
wheelchair someone had found way offshore, and got the idea for using either
Wheeleez balloon tires (optionally with a removable hub for storing stuff,
and maybe built-in inflator) or belted wheels for the sand portion of the KGC;
and have whatever "sculpture" reconfigurable to resemble a mobility cart for
the disabled. One never knows when such might come in handy.

I had jogged through the golf community from Doran beach, only to find when
going back from Heron Drive there were signs saying "B.H.H.A. Private Property".
Since I didn't see them from the other direction, I assume they were there
as a "usurpation of the commons" strategy, designed only to keep people from
parking there and walking into the park.
[comment]

I wonder if anybody has experimented with a power frisbee; say for example
one that generates steam with two or three evenly-spaced jets around the outer
edge that make it fly much farther than the initial thrust would provide.
It could also generate enough electricity through a dynamo to provide GPS
or video control. Could be used for delivery of small items point-to-point or
simply to break windows remotely.
[comment]

Someone called me an anarcho-communist due
to some comments I made in a Facebook discussion. Ouch. So I'm going to make some notes
about the commons, to use for future
reference.

As I understand rationing of the Mimbres
aquifer in southern New Mexico, wells must
not draw more than certain limits. To
exceed these limits, an entity must apply
for an exemption and pay a fee. There is
a public discussion period, but if the
public outroar is limited, the entity may
now suck larger quantities of the water
out for his cattle or pecan trees.

I may not be 100% accurate in the above
description, but I believe it's close enough
to make my point. By the unholy alliance of
the State and capitalists, the common water
supply has been usurped. Money goes to the
state, which enables the environmentally
destructive ranchers and tree farmers (this
is desert for christsakes) to make
more money, which makes them able to pay
more fees for more water, ad nauseam.
Meanwhile the water table drops a few feet
per year, and everybody on both sides of
the border has to dig their wells deeper.

As for the axiom of private property, admit
it's an axiom and quit pretending there's
something inherently true or noble about it.
It only came to be when large-scale
agriculture subsumed the hunter-gatherer
peoples or drove them away to less and less
suitable areas, something witnessed more
recently in the US when so-called "treaties"
left the nomadic Americans with smaller and
smaller plots of land to the point where
their preferred mode of life became
impossible, so, not being predisposed to
farming, these once-proud peoples languished
in misery. And in many cases, if memory
serves, since the goddamned lazy Indians
wouldn't farm the good, rich acreage we
left them, we took it away with more
"treaties" and swapped it for desert.

So, admit that property rights are and always
have been based on violence. A true
voluntaryist should have some soul-searching
to do at this point. Go ahead and maintain
the myth of land ownership, but realize
that you have destroyed the nomadic
hunter-gatherer lifestyle in so doing, and
that the peoples disenfranchised by your
little game may someday rise and take back
their land. Scoffing heard. If Americans,
as Robert Pirsig asserts, have subconsciously
internalized the Native American philosophy,
it could yet happen as a new generation of
multi-ethnic Indians arises out of the
ashes of the American Dream.

Which brings me back to my eternal rant
about paved-over cities with few or no
public bathrooms. In a state of nature there
is always a place to relieve oneself. If
you usurp nature for your own ends, it
behooves you to maintain some semblance
of the commons you have stolen. Shit and
piss are useful resources, particularly
after composting, and collecting it would
be profitable if cities could allocate
the necessary resources to replace the
current destructive and wasteful infrastructure with something saner based on Joseph
Jenkins's research.

And while we're at it, how about some
allowance for nomadism as well? Multi-use
paths at least every mile in populated areas,
every ten miles of wilderness, both N-S and
E-W. Europe has built land bridges over its
highways, a good step in that direction.

One final thought, for now: if your only
contribution to a conversation is
name-calling or snark, you have, in my
opinion, conceded the argument. If you can't
handle a challenge to your precepts, you
might as well stay out of adult discussions.
[comment]

What? To a piece of cloth? Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of moron would
pledge allegiance to any flag, let alone this one that has been sullied by
interventionist wars for decades, wars that arguably have been for dubious
political ends or outright financial exploits for the benefit of Wall Street?

And to the Republic for which it stands...

OK, that's a little better. Except for the fact that our Republic has of late
degraded into something indistinguishable from a dictatorship.

One nation, under God, indivisible...

Hold it right there? "under God" does offend me half as much as "indivisible"!
Secession is an absolute right of a free state and its people.

... with liberty and justice for all.

That I can get into. But that's something the state has to prove to me, not
something I will blindly assert about it. End of rant, for now.
[comment]

Picked up lemons from one of my favorite
Freecyclers, and passed Taps on my way home.
It's Tightwad Tuesday, and they have Taps
Pale Ale for $2.50/pint, so I had one.
Hopped just right, went down smooth. The
barmaid said Firestone makes it for them.
[comment]

I'm about ready to admit that I got duped; the Sandy Hook inconsistencies are probably all
answerable without resorting to conspiracy theory. I apologize for being
sucked in so easily, and will attempt to be more circumspect next time around.

I'm still not ready to concede the Aurora shootings though; I haven't seen
the "second shooter" theory debunked yet, for one thing.

One reason I get drawn so easily into conspiracy stories is because the
media, and people in general, seem to refuse to believe anything is
a conspiracy, such as Obama's plan to disarm America, which daily has more
supportive evidence, and the Fast and Furious coverup, which is already well
documented by Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea.
[comment]

Waking from a dream this morning, it was compellingly important, for whatever
reason, to write down the names Thibodeau and Richardson, but I don't remember
the reason. I vaguely remember something about them being explorers,
and each of them had died.

Last night after dinner my throat was feeling scratchy, and by this morning
it was raw. Dammit. Probably due to too many sugary treats lately.
[comment]

I guess the trick of adding castor oil to beans does work. I'm not nearly as
gassy as with the previous experiments, and the farts I do have aren't
malodorous (yes, I know the old joke). But
they didn't cook up as tender as last time, lacking hambones to help hold in
the heat. Today though, I got a good deal on a Lodge dutch oven, $12.99 minus
20% senior discount at Goodwill, and have the beans back in the heatbox,
with some uncured salami and the rest of my jar of olives, until dinnertime.
Hoping the flavors blend well.

Also bought a pretty good snorkel for about $3 to take to Baja.
[comment]

Noticed mold forming in my crock of mashed prickly pears, so this time I just
scooped off the top, found a plate that fit the crock fairly well, and squeezed
out as much juice as I could, throwing the rest of the fruit away. Then used a
funnel to get the juice, along with the pulp still left in it, into a gallon
jug. Slapped an airlock on it and it's bubbling away. I'm about ready to admit
defeat on coming up with an easy but primitive method of brewing
colonche.
[comment]

Build cheap ferries with no engine, just some kind of power train that uses
the cars onboard to generate the propulsion. Just fasten the front of the cars
in good just in case the rollers lock up you don't get a runaway...

Saw a guy on a Kawasaki jet-ski in the Petaluma river the other day, he was
fully immersed except his upper torso. That gave me an idea for some kind of
amphibeous motor contraption with at least one wheel and perhaps a turbine
for use in the water. On land you could have wheels attached just above the
knee, holding the device in front of you or with your chest resting on it
as you barrel down the road.

The Golden Gate bus advertised free wifi, and I've been able to use it in the
past, but when I went to SR yesterday it gave me an IP but wouldn't redirect
me to the firewall. I tried the /24 with .1 and with .254 but there was no
webserver at either address.

Citizens should form posses and have magnetic stickers saying ECILOP to stick
to the side of their cars. Go around arresting police for violating the laws
that ordinary people have to follow but they typically do not (e.g. carrying
firearms in places where they are outlawed). Humiliate them but do no harm;
just help them to see what they are doing wrong.

Design some kind of steel box with electronically controlled orifices that
close off air, and then force air, to preserve charcoal fuel but then bring
to high heat quickly, to "cook" human excrement such that the harmful
pathogens are neutralized quickly and to drive off the water, leaving only
harmless powder. This would help handle the transition phase between the
wasteful "shitting in drinking water" situation in which most of the world
finds itself, and a better future where there is no waste and everything is
reused, human "waste" being composted as humanure.
[comment]

Rice cooked 12 minutes on the stove followed by an hour or more in the heatbox
came out perfect. I've never gotten brown rice so fluffy, just as good as
white rice, using the normal cooking method. Remind me to write up a howto on
it someday.

Opened a ticket with Caltrans for that
PEDESTRIANS PROHIBITED sign that doesn't belong there. Let's see if
it gets any action. For sure the goddamned cops are going to use that sign
for all it's worth.
[comment]

Started on the latest batch of beans tonight, too early to tell if the
addition of castor oil is going to prevent flatulence but I don't have much
faith. They didn't cook as well this time, I assume because I didn't have any
bones to add for thermal inertia.

Guess I got my USB-bootable KNOPPIX working just in time, the hard drive
won't mount at all tonight. Might have lost a lot of downloaded music and
gigabytes of code; but then again it may all be salvageable eventually. Not
going to sweat it too much.

Going to Santa Rosa tomorrow to buy a replacement cell phone via Craigslist.
My phone still works, but neither charger does, and this phone should have
an identical charger and battery; it's also possible my SIM card will work
in it. And it's a much better phone.
[comment]

Sheriff Doyle, it was right about here, exiting highway 101 onto Atherton
Avenue, from the north, walking against the traffic as per the CVC, that I was unlawfully detained and searched: [Google Maps].

The CVC prohibits pedestrians and bicycles on freeways where posted, and
the stretch of 101 between Petaluma Blvd. South and Atherton Avenue in Novato
is not so posted on either end. There is a sign on the shoulder of
the southbound exit stating PEDESTRIANS PROHIBITED, but that
contradicts CVC
21956 and common sense, as evidenced by the sign a few feet north that
states BICYCLES PEDESTRIANS MUST EXIT. In any case, I was
not walking on that side, and Deputy Jones told me, wrongly, that I should have
been.

So I have to assume that you do not understand what you were told, or you were
lied to.
[comment]

When Necmettin Erbakan violated the Turkish constitution by attempting to
impose Islam on a country that had decided on a secular government, the Turkish
military quickly deposed him, quietly and bloodlessly. This would be a good
strategy for dealing with the treasonous elements in our government, if there
were some real leaders in our military who would risk their lives to obey their
oath.
[comment]

Got rid of my silver this morning, sold to a guy on Craigslist. Entering the
apolcalypse weaponless and without any real money except for my stash of
7.62x39 ammunition. And I don't even remember where I hid it, although I have
a few good ideas.
[comment]

Finally got a usable Linux again using these insructions. No sense trying to fix my hard drive installation
any more, the drive is on its last legs. Hopefully I can get all the good
stuff off it first.
[comment]

About to see if this solution, upgrading udev, fixes my
boot problem. Strange that the images that are lacking the proper directory
in /lib/modules boot up all the way, whereas those that do have modules do not.

Also realizing my /etc/fstab doesn't have all the necessary entries that
coLinux needs to figure out what to do. The normal Linux boot process somehow
populates /dev and /sys regardless.

It struck me while taking a shower that the anti-gunners will start off saying
"What the hell do you need semi-automatics with large magazines for? You don't
need them for deer hunting." and if you answer "To fight against enemies
foreign and domestic." they then say "Oh, you're going to fight our own
government? Good luck with that, ha ha! Our military will squash you like a
bug!" On the one hand, they realize you need parity in firepower with the
military, and on the other hand they want to take away the closest thing you
have to that parity. In other words, they want to give up without a fight,
and they want you to do the same. Just like the Austrians welcomed their lord and savior, Adolf Hitler, convinced he would take them in his mighty
arms and lead them to peace and prosperity. Mental laziness is perhaps the
worst kind.
[comment]

On Facebook and other online forums I've often seen people criticize 3pers and
other gunnies for being "all talk and no action". That's a fair accusation.
We keep saying "you pass one more gun law and that's it", but we don't follow
through. We don't want to have to follow through. We don't want to have to shoot at our cops and politicians, or even at the .001% of the
population that pulls their strings. We just want you to respect our freedoms,
even if you don't care to exercise them yourself.

Think about it, hasn't the government ever enraged you? Its imprisonment of
Bradley Manning? Its drone killings of innocent civilians including children?
The wholesale slaughter of Iraqi civilians exposed by Wikileaks? The nationwide
stifling of the Occupy protests? There's got to have been something that
bothered you over the past couple of decades if you've been paying the least
bit of attention. If you have weapons, you can at least say "well, if it gets
worse, we can still fight to get our government back." Without guns, all you
can really say is "oh, shit, it's over". And that is a sad thought.
[comment]

Fellow gunnies, if we don't get our facts straight, it destroys our credibility
and undermines our arguments. Please check with Wikiquote or Guncite before posting
apocryphal or misattributed quotes. Don't keep stating the Swiss keep military-grade guns and ammo at home, the ammo was taken away back in 2007. I'll post other examples when I'm reminded of them.
[comment]

Why was Alyssa Byrne not able to be tracked
by her cellphone signal? If the authorities
had suspected her of drug trafficking, you
can bet they'd have triangulated in on
her in no time.

In a recent dream there was a road with so
many superfluous markings in various colors
put there by road crews, gas, electric, and
fiber communications companies, that it
was almost impossible to see the lanes. It
brought to mind an article I had read,
possibly also in a dreamworld, about how
bad design choices cascade to an end result
that nobody wants to work on. Polishing a
turd. I've worked on software projects like that. Hell, might as well admit it, most of
my own projects have ended up like that.

Steamer Landing Park and the adjacent field
behind Yardbirds has been mowed, and my seedlings, if any sprouted, were likely destroyed.
Planted more kale and chiles in the mounds that escaped the trimming. Picked some mallow
and mustard, and reaped the remainder of the
prickly pear fruit.

There's a sculpture called Sir Bent at the
Petaluma Arts Centre. It's a large serpent
head of welded scrap over rocks and driftwood. Quite well done, in the style I associate
with Burning Man.
[comment]

If I owned property, which I no longer do, I might be one of the "cold, dead
hands" crowd so often mocked by the left. But without property, even in states
where gun rights are still valued, the right to "keep and bear arms" is rarely
usable in practice. For one thing, the Gun-Free School Zones Act makes it
illegal to carry within 1000 feet of a school. In a city like San Francisco,
that law leaves a gun-toter few if any options to get from point A to point B.
Then there are laws prohibiting guns in post offices, bars, banks, and other
institutions. In many California cities there are unconstitutional laws
prohibiting or restricting ownership or carrying of weapons. Petaluma's
ordinance 10.56 is one. But anyway, if Obama isn't stupid -- and it would be
unwise to assume that he is -- he will not send police or troops door to door
to take your weapons. He just has to make it mandatory that you invite them in
to check your place. When they've searched it, you and every adult member of
your family gets a record put in your file, indexed to your drivers license
or passport, that you have complied. Next time you go to perform jury duty,
or get your license plates renewed, or come back into the country from a
business trip, your records will be pulled. If you haven't had the requisite
search of your properties done, you will be fined or incarcerated. This was
discussed a few years back in relation to a supposed mandatory flu shot. At
the time I was living on the border, and had to pass through a checkpoint
every time I went to Deming, NM for supplies. I was getting ready for war at
that point, and stocked up on guns and ammunition. I've since gotten rid of
all of it but a couple of air rifles and some archery equipment.

So anyway, if a gun ban is put into effect (or mandatory vaccination or
national ID card or ???), be damned sure you don't have to
stray too far from your front door. Anything you do to interact with the State
will likely be booby-trapped. Meanwhile we must do everything in our power to
dissuade the collectivists from implementing any such plans.
[comment]

Decided to break out the batch of colonche I started in early
December, to take to Mike's birthday party. There was a layer of green and white
mold on top, that came off easily like a pancake. Then I tried to remove the
fruit, which typically floats on top while the liquid stays on the bottom.
It didn't work that way this time. The fruit was spongy and retained most of
the liquid. I didn't even fill a standard wine bottle with what was left after
I poured it through a funnel lined with cheesecloth. And I could be mistaken
but I sense a moldy aftertaste to the beverage. I'm not even sure it's wine,
can't taste any alcohol.
[comment]

A friend of a friend on Facebook just posted that he wanted to have all homeless
people medicated monthly with Haldol to prevent them from committing crimes.
If this is a commonly held opinion, then it is a very disturbing one. Not all
homeless are schizophrenic; my experience with them is perhaps 10% of them
show obvious signs of pathological behavior. Even most of those with mental
illness are gentle and harmless; and many have no mental illness at all, they're
just tired of the rigged game of "private property" and have opted out.

Having experienced homelessness first-hand, although admittedly in a rather
haphazard fashion, always having other options, I can say that those who don't
participate in the illusion of prosperity already have enough privations
without forcing more upon them. One of the first that you encounter as you
leave your house behind is that there is no place to go to the bathroom,
especially in cities, and most especially at night. It may seem like a small
matter until you have been up for hours with pressure on your bladder and/or
uranus and no legal way to relieve it. I'm not saying there are easy solutions,
particularly as our culture treats human waste as such, "waste", rather than
the valuable resource it could and should be; I'm just saying it's a problem
that wouldn't exist in a state of nature.

Another matter is that the homeless have, even in the "better" states like
Florida, pretty much lost their 2nd Amendment rights. There are so many places
where carrying a weapon is illegal, and given that post offices, banks, and
bars no longer offer the service of "checking" it at the door, it becomes
totally impractical to own one. People who appear to be "homeless" are routinely
hassled by the police, and regardless of legality, a cop will confiscate your
weapon and you will have little to no recourse. You may even be locked up for
a while.

I could go on and on about this, and may someday, but I've got a dying hard
drive that needs my attention. So, end of rant for now.
[comment]

Just experienced stinging nettle behind Day's
place. The leaves were amazingly irritating
to the back of my hand, but the redness and
burning are already dissipating just minutes
later. I rubbed the deeply serrated leaf
between my hands until it looked "steamed"
and then ate it. Quite tasty, but I can't
describe the flavor in terms of anything
else I've ever eaten.
[comment]

Finally got rid of the ACL_1.2 not found errors by reinstalling libacl1. However,
multiple attempts at fixing /lib/modules
has left me with a missing initrd, and I
cannot boot normally. Have to google around
for backdoor methods I've forgotten.
[comment]

Wondering if every time I narrowly
avert death, in an alternative
universe I actually do die. And when I get
tired of living, at some junction in the
multiverse, I'll just accept the death
rather than choose one of the branches
that continues my life. And yet those
branches still exist?
[comment]

Wal-Mart in RP hasn't had .22LR ammo for
about two months, according to Ron in
sporting goods, and he doesn't know when any
is expected in. The shelves are pretty bare
except for a couple boxes each of oddball
sizes like 7mm and .38 special.

Home Depot has hexayurt-capable aluminized
foam sheets up to 2" thick. The 1.5" goes
for under $15 per sheet.
[comment]

On the north side of Gravenstein just east
of Stony Point there's an unfenced opening
to a field with lots of large, succulent
sorrel leaves. Picked some of that, along
with some curly dock and mustard greens.
That quenched my thirst and appetite so far.
There's a deer trail in there that leads to
a hideaway in the blackberry bushes
surrounding the creek.

Off highway 12 the other day, I saw a sign
reading SPURS TRAIL CLOSED USE MINER'S
TRAIL, then farther east, on the
north side of the road, I saw a sign for
Miner's Trail. Anybody know if these are
biking or hiking trails? A quick
Google search came up empty.
[comment]

From the Seed Bank I had wanted to jog
nonstop to REI in Santa Rosa. I only made
it as far as Jewett and Stony Point before
muscular pain in right upper leg and glutes
pressured me to stop and walk.
[comment]

In a recent dreamworld, the upper stories
of a building were all made of steel wire,
the main supports no more than 1/4" diameter.
Slums on Luna could be very affordable, once
the infrastructure is in place.
[comment]

Made contact on the 145.450 repeater from the top of the ridge closest to,
and south of, highway 36, a few miles east of Paynes Creek. N6COZ or
something like that.

Practiced a little with the compound bow today with a makeshift target at
about 20 yards. I kept hitting high and to the left; when the distance went
from 8 inches to two feet I decided to call it quits. My arms were already
tired from trying to start the two chain saws. The rubbery fletching was
getting torn up by the WhiskerBiscuit, I guess either because the fletching
is too old or the temperature is too cold. Perhaps a combination of both.
[comment]